The Human Conundrum
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: It's a routine day aboard Enterprise. Then Malcolm has an unexpected visitor, and suddenly life isn't so routine after all...
1. Chapter 1: Reed

_**Author's Note:**_ **Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.**

* * *

Last _one._

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed stretched and sighed.

Regular assessment was part of the yearly routine for all Starfleet personnel, and therefore it was his responsibility to perform that duty for the men and women under his command. He did so conscientiously, and today was the day he had set aside for the quarterly interviews.

So far everything had gone smoothly. He was not expecting any problems with the last member of his staff; although a relative newcomer to the ship, Crewman Nwosu was quiet but competent and very thorough, and there were no issues with his work to address. His Department Head had only the pleasant duty of commending how diligently he had applied himself to a training course he had undertaken over the last few months, and observing that he was now a valued member of the team and an asset to _Enterprise._ Indeed, if the crewman was interested in pursuing promotion, Malcolm was ready to discuss how he could begin preparing himself for this – although he himself felt that gaining more experience for a time would give Nwosu a better grounding for any future prospects at a higher rank.

Of course, there was always the possibility that the crewman might have matters that he himself wished to discuss, other than his current performance and future prospects in Starfleet. Malcolm took a swig of tea (which had gone somewhat cold, but was still drinkable), carefully finished and closed his recorded notes on the previous interview, and brought up the computer record for Crewman Nwosu. As a matter of routine the discussion to come would be recorded in full, as each of the others had been, but it was still his practice to make notes for his own reference afterwards.

The chime on his office door came punctually to the dot, eliciting a slight nod of approval. "Come in."

He was glancing to see that the recorder was ready when the door opened, and so he did not look up until the new arrival closed it behind him. Then he did – and was instantly on his feet, rigid with suspicion and alarm. "Who the hell are you?"

His next action was to slam a hand to the comm unit. "Security alert, we have an intruder on the ship!" he barked. "All security personnel, to stations!"

The man who walked – or rather sauntered – forward and dropped into the waiting chair seemed remarkably unfazed by the reaction to his arrival. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his definitely non-Regulation trousers – he was wearing what appeared to be a safari suit, of all things – before crossing one leg over the other, and cocking a sardonic eyebrow.

Crewman Nwosu was dark-skinned, tall and strongly built, with wiry sandy-coloured hair. This person appeared to be of European origin. He was probably just as tall, but very slender, with a narrow, haughty-looking face, and his hair was dark. His whole demeanour was one of amused arrogance.

There was no response from the comm unit. Malcolm pressed the button again, urgently, wanting to know that he was the only one under threat. "Reed to the Bridge, please report!"

"Oh, they can't hear you," the intruder drawled, leaning back in the chair. "As a matter of fact, _nobody_ can hear you. I thought we'd have a few minutes on our own, just to have a little chat."

"Who are you? What do you want?" Weapons were stored in secured cabinets in the Armoury proper, a regulation that had its downsides – as in this present situation. The only one currently within his reach was the small ivory knife he carried in one of the pockets of his coverall, but it would be difficult to reach it unseen; and though his unexpected visitor appeared to be unarmed, the fact that he'd managed to sever communications between here and the Bridge suggested there was more to him than met the eye.

"Exactly what I say. A little chat." A negligent wave of one well-manicured hand. "But by all means, if it'll make you happy, go outside. Summon help. If you can find any."

 _If he could find any?_ His office was to one side of the Armoury. At _no_ time was that sanctum of the ship's defensive capabilities left unattended.

And yet–

Frowning, and keeping a wary eye on the intruder, Malcolm stepped to the door and pressed the button that opened it.

The Armoury appeared completely normal. Except for the fact that it was completely deserted.

"Nwosu! McKenna! Burman!" he said sharply. "Report!"

They'd all been in here when he'd entered his office, and both Burman and McKenna had tasks that would occupy them for some considerable time. Of course it was sometimes necessary to take a break, but he would never for a moment have believed any of them capable of the sheer unprofessionalism of leaving the Armoury completely unattended. Crewman Nwosu had been shadowing explosives expert McKenna on a review of the current status of a newly modified warhead from one of the torpedoes – the R&D people had sent out a technical note suggesting the benefits of this modification, but Malcolm, ever cautious, had detailed McKenna to carry out the modification on just one and run a diagnostic on its performance. The results of this would be discussed exhaustively with Trip before making the decision whether to proceed. Sure enough, the warhead was visible in the reinforced isolation chamber, where it was placed in case of accidents even though the arming mechanism was sitting safely on a table outside it. The diagnostic viewer appeared to be active, but there was nobody there to see it.

Glancing suspiciously back at his visitor, who had not moved except to cross his arms and look long-suffering, he slipped rapidly to the door to the corridor.

There was no-one outside. He stood for a moment listening to the silence, and then shouted.

Nobody answered.

He strode back into his office, his fists clenched, fear and rage mounting in him. _"What have you done with them?"_

"Oh, you're such a worrier!" A theatrical scowl. "Honestly, you're even worse than Jean-Luc.

"They're all perfectly safe. I simply want a few minutes of your time. Is that too much to ask?"

" _I want_ the ship's crew returned safe and sound – and then, with the captain's permission, I'll talk to you! Whoever you are, and whatever you want!"

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" The stranger sat upright like an offended cat. "Have you _any_ idea who I am?"

"No, and at the moment, I don't give a damn!"

This wasn't quite true. Instinct was screaming at him that someone who could arrange for the entire ship's complement to disappear without trace was not someone who could be safely dismissed in so cavalier a fashion. But all his training said that you didn't show weakness to a bully, and so he glared at his unwanted visitor.

"Humans! No matter what century you're from, you're such a _tiresome_ little species!"

Malcolm was never sure what happened next. Unless it was some incredibly vivid illusion, he presumably moved from a) to b) by some physical process, but whatever it was, he retained no impression of it. One second he was in his office aboard _Enterprise_ , and the next he was in a cave, and there was a Klingon warrior directly opposite him. They were perhaps equally surprised to see each other, but the Klingon was holding a _bat'leth_ , which he immediately swung in an arc which would have removed the Englishman's head from his shoulders had not Malcolm by pure reflex swung up the _bat'leth_ he himself was somehow carrying, just in time to block it. The shock of the blow jarred through his shoulders, and even though the worst of the strike was deflected he had to jerk his head back desperately to avoid the blade as it grated and rang against his own.

Next instant he was back on board _Enterprise_ , staggering back from the impact. His hands were still raised, but there was nothing in them, though his ears were full of the shriek of metal and his whole body was shuddering from the force of the blow.

But what if – what if that was where the rest of the ship's crew had been taken? He had the greatest respect for the Klingons' fighting abilities, if not for their average intelligence. Captain Archer had once been convicted by the High Council, and imprisoned in Rura Penthe for his 'crimes' – having been instrumental in his rescue, Malcolm could remember all too vividly the cruel cold of the prison and the barbarous condition under which the inhabitants toiled. If they had captured him again–!

His mouth was completely dry.

There were two options. Either this was a trick, and the encounter with the Klingon had indeed been an extremely vivid illusion, or it was real – and this _person_ confronting him had powers that made him an exceptionally dangerous enemy.

If it was a trick, it was a bloody good one. If it was real, on the other hand, then diplomacy might be a good idea. Except that diplomacy was something he preferred to practise with weapons, and that wasn't an available option.

"You'd feel happier with a weapon again, Lieutenant? Perhaps something more your style?"

Not a _bat'leth_ this time. A rifle – something so huge and brutal he could hardly lift it.

Malcolm knew when he was having the piss taken. No matter how brutal the rifle looked, he wouldn't have been given it if there'd been the slightest likelihood of his being able to do any damage with it. He threw it to the floor, but before it hit the deck plating it turned into a white rabbit, which drew a fob watch from its waistcoat pocket, checked the time, shook its head and then hurried around the corner of his desk and disappeared.

Alice in Wonderland. _For fuck's sake._

"What have you done with the captain?" he demanded.

"I haven't done anything to him." The visitor sat back in the chair, put his elbows on the arms of it and steepled his fingers together. His smile was now as urbane as it was irritating. "I assure you, nobody on the Bridge is aware anything is wrong. Nobody even knows I'm here."

"Then who are you and _what do you want?_ "

Another of those bewildering mood-shifts. "Do you know, I always understood the English were among the most courteous people on your miserable little planet. You're certainly not a shining example of it."

"Whoever you got your information from neglected to add that the English are also among the least likely to tolerate people who board their ship without permission."

" _'Permission'_?" He inflated like an outraged bullfrog. "I've never heard anything so absurd in my life! You really _don't_ have any idea who you're talking to, do you!"

"No. You haven't bothered to tell me."

Once again the scene changed. Now it was a barbaric throne room. In front of him, a flight of some dozen or so fur-laden marble steps led up to a gorgeous gold throne, on which his visitor sprawled in festoons of gold tissue and jewellery. He himself was loaded with chains so heavy he could hardly hold his body upright where he knelt naked in humiliation; a steel collar was welded around his neck, and his wrists were shackled to the back of it. All around, crowds of beautifully-dressed courtiers bayed and jeered at him.

 _This has to be an illusion._ He could just about move one bare foot, with difficulty, and he lifted it and slammed it into the floor as hard as he could. The pain from his toes was horrendous, but he didn't wake up.

The vision on the throne leaned forward and spoke with a venomous smile. "You're still expecting me to ask 'permission' to visit your wretched little ship and speak to you, Lieutenant?"

He answered when he could make himself heard above the roars of laughter. "'An Englishman's home is his castle', didn't your informant tell you that? I'd expect the Queen herself to ask permission – and because she's _real_ royalty rather than someone playacting at it, she'd understand that good manners oblige her to do so!"

They were back in his office again. His foot hurt so much he could hardly bear to put any weight on it, but he blanked both that and the suggestion that if it still hurt, what he'd experienced probably hadn't been an illusion at all.

"Oh, very well." A huff. "I suppose it wasn't very polite of me not to introduce myself. My name is Q."


	2. Chapter 2: Reed

'Q'. Presumably the letter, rather than something you did when you were waiting for a taxi.

Was that supposed to _mean_ something to him?

Q was looking at him expectantly, so presumably it was.

"So what are you doing on my ship?"

A flicker of annoyance, probably because his persistence on that topic was becoming tedious. "I'm here because I'm _bored_. Commander Riker is every bit as tedious as Jean-Luc, and I've lost all patience with the both of them."

A hasty review of the names of as many of Starfleet's command personnel as he could remember failed to come up with any Commander Riker. 'Jean-Luc' could be anybody.

"It occurred to me that maybe I'd picked the wrong people to befriend," Q continued airily. "So I thought I'd try a time when your species hasn't had so long to become bumptious with its own self-importance." He waved a hand. "And so here I am. Entertain me."

Malcolm Reed had an honest respect for his own skills. If called upon to shoot something or blow something up, he would have been confident of his ability to do so, these being his greatest strengths. But when it came to entertaining people, it was quite possible that there was absolutely nobody aboard _Enterprise_ less capable than its armoury officer.

He suspected that his visitor was perfectly aware of that fact.

"I was not commissioned for my powers of _entertainment_ ," he said glacially.

"True, true." Q's smile was sardonic. "But then you have so many hidden talents that Captain Archer was unable to take into consideration when he was selecting his officers."

And yet again the scene changed.

Malcolm was standing on the Bridge, directly in front of the viewscreen. A quick look around revealed that everyone was present, everyone was safe – the captain was seated in his chair, reading something from a PADD, and even Trip was paying a brief visit to the Engineering station. They all seemed to be busy with routine tasks, but although Malcolm wasn't aware of having made a sound, everyone looked up and stared at him, plainly as astonished to see him there as he was.

This in itself would have been bad enough (unannounced and startling appearances on the Bridge were not Approved Officer Conduct), but after a second he realised with a chill of absolute horror that he wasn't wearing his Starfleet uniform. He was in an outfit he'd worn for a Section 31 op, one that had ended with the team having to fight their way out of a particularly dangerous situation. He'd gone in as bait, and was dressed accordingly, but the black leather was half torn off him in places and glossy with blood. He still had a knife in his hand, the only weapon he'd been allowed to carry; the foot-long blade was red. It fell to the deck, and the clatter of it was loud in the silence.

Captain Archer stood up, the astonishment on his face giving way to dismay and concern. "Malcolm, what the hell–? Are you okay?" His hazel eyes widened as he took in the blood, and he slapped the comm. panel on his chair. "Archer to Sickbay. Phlox, report to the Bridge – on the double!"

Malcolm had never been so glad to see the inside of his own office before. Though he could only imagine the _myriad_ questions that would be asked next time he and the captain came face to face. Which would probably happen very shortly, when the computer provided his location in response to the inevitable demand of where he'd disappeared to.

He was appalled by the knowledge of the consternation and worry the apparition would have caused to the captain, and indeed to everyone else on the Bridge. And one thing he definitely didn't need was curiosity; his past was well hidden, but he was in the best position of all to know that secrets, especially damaging secrets, have a way of sneaking out. He'd helped enough of them into the daylight in his time, invariably to the extreme detriment of their owners.

"You see, you _can_ be entertaining – in the right circumstances." Q smirked.

Guilt and rage choked the words in his throat for a second before he got out, "You had no right–!"

The entity – for surely the appearance of humanity was nothing more than a convenient illusion – waved this away. "'Might' equals 'right' as far as _I_ am concerned. And now I trust you're prepared to treat me with a little more appropriate respect."

"Respect – _you?_ " Malcolm took a step forward, his fists balled. "You've risked my career, you–!"

"Oh, _please._ " A scornful wave of a finger, and he was frozen where he stood; literally frozen, for he could not move so much as a muscle as Q stood up and walked around him, inspecting him disdainfully. "I must say, Starfleet make poor choices in their security officers. Worf was another who never knew when to stop."

 _I hope he managed to punch your face through the back of your head, whoever he was._ The thought went unuttered, because he couldn't move his mouth to form the words, but he prayed that Q would be able to hear them anyway. Right now, the only thing that could have induced him to kowtow to this lanky, sneering shite would be any threat to the ship; the safety of _Enterprise_ and her crew were his responsibility and his number one priority. He calmed himself slightly by reflecting that although his career might well be at serious risk if Captain Archer ever did discover that he had an ex Black Ops agent working as his Head of Security, there was little real risk of his making this discovery simply on the basis of what he'd witnessed in that one startling apparition. After all, given Malcolm's Section operative's facility for concealing a truth in full view, it would be child's play to twist this latest one into just one more of the inexplicable series of happenings that had befallen him to be narrated to his bewildered CO: "I have no idea why he had me naked in a throne room, _or_ dressed in torn leather, and oh, did I mention fighting a Klingon?"

"Well. However substandard – I think you'll do for now." Q resumed his chair and crossed one leg over the other, thrusting his hands negligently into his pockets. "I'm interested in investigating the concept of this thing you Humans call 'love'. 'The passion of the heart', I believe is the term."

Malcolm found himself able to move, but felt discretion was the better part of valour at that moment. "'Love'?" he spat, outraged. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Q steepled his fingers once more and smirked at him over them. "Oh, let's not be coy, Lieutenant. I think you know perfectly well."

Almost without his knowledge, his hands had bunched into fists. "I don't know what you're talking about."

No response to that; only the smooth turn of a hand to bring the palm upward, showing a tiny, perfect hologram cupped in it.

He already knew who he would see. And that it was pointless to deny –anything...

But he stiffened his back defiantly. "She's none of your business!"

"And none of yours ...yet, eh, Lieutenant?" The voice was sly. "Except as the scared little thing who's grown into a brave young woman – one of the crew it's your sacred duty to protect. I don't imagine she has the faintest idea how much you look forward to those extra phase pistol lessons you scheduled for her..."

"As I do for any member of the crew who needs them!" Malcolm snapped, flushing.

"But of course!" The supercilious eyebrows climbed. "But I hardly think you find Crewman Anderson's aftershave enchanting. And I hardly imagine you have to school yourself quite so sternly to behave with _absolute propriety_ when you're adjusting Lieutenant Durand's posture."

By this time the Englishman was almost shaking with rage and humiliation. He'd fought tooth and nail against the attraction he felt, but though it was a losing battle he prided himself that no-one else even suspected his hopeless longing for a woman eight years his junior, one who wouldn't look twice at him as anything other than a senior officer. Having this absolute stranger spread out his private pain for amused inspection as though it was a cheap story in one of the more salacious newspapers was almost more than he could bear.

He had to swallow several times before he could be sure his voice would serve him. Then he spoke with arduous calm. "Whatever I may or may not feel about a member of this crew, or what they may or may not feel about me, is none of your business. Whoever you are."

"Ah, but I'm about to _make_ it my business. I feel as though setting you a challenge might be entertaining."

Whether Q's powers were real or whether he was simply superbly able to induce hallucinations in his victims, there seemed little point in attempting to defy him. Malcolm swallowed again, dry-throated, and made what he already knew was a vain plea.

"Whatever you have in mind– please– no-one else aboard _Enterprise_ –"

"Oh, _mon cher_ Lieutenant – that's the whole point of the exercise!"


	3. Chapter 3: Reed

Light seared his eyes.

"Wake up!" A scared female voice was hissing in his ear. "Lieutenant, you've got to wake up!"

He thrust up a hand to come between him and the light. Sand showered from it, but fortunately he closed his eyes in reflex before any could get in.

Sight was the thing he could least afford to lose. With his other hand he swiped the sand from his face before cautiously opening his eyes again, still shielding them from the glare.

The sun was shining directly on to his face from a slit of a window, high up in the opposite wall. Hoshi Sato (of _course!_ ) was kneeling beside him. Her face was grey with shock and fear.

"A little background information might come in useful," said a hated voice. Q was lounging in Malcolm's office chair in a darkened corner. "Your survival skills will come in useful here. You're quite the expert, after all – though I imagine this experience will be a novelty, even for you."

"Wait–!" The lieutenant tried to sit up; his head was pounding. "You can't do this to us– You can't–!"

"Oh, but I can." Q smiled charmingly. "And moreover, I have. I've put you in a situation where you can get what you want – if, of course, you survive. I'll be intrigued to see how you get on."

Malcolm glanced at Hoshi; she was staring from him to the corner and back again, her eyes wide with alarm. The picture seared itself into his brain.

"No!" he shouted. "Do what you want with me, but not her!" His left foot got traction on the stone floor beneath the dirty, sand-caked straw on which he was lying, and he lunged forward, but even before he'd got his other foot underneath him there was a flash of light and the corner was empty. His outstretched hands just about fended him off from crashing into the wall.

"Sir, who–?" Her voice was trembling slightly, and she paused, biting her lip to steady herself. "Who are you talking to? And where are we?"

 _Bastard. Fucking bastard!_ Assorted creative variations of this theme in several languages ran through his mind as he rested his aching forehead briefly against the wall, but it was now his turn to bite his lip. _Conduct becoming an officer_ and all that, and his secondary responsibility now was to provide support for his junior officer in any way required. His primary one, of course, was to see that both of them got out of this alive, as quickly as possible – or if it was necessary that only one of them could, that Hoshi would be the survivor.

"The 'who', Ensign, is a being who has arranged for us to be transported here for ..." He paused. 'For his warped entertainment' might be true, but it was hardly likely to calm Hoshi's fears. "For some kind of experiment. His name is apparently Q. He materialised in the Armoury some minutes ago. I take it you couldn't see him here." Pathetic as it might be, he couldn't help sending her a searching look. "Did – did anything strange at all happen on the Bridge?"

Her surprise was apparent, and as she shook her head, a part of him was conscious of a wave of sickening relief. If his supposed visit to the Bridge in his Section 31 guise had been an illusion, perhaps this was too.

 _'If I were you, Lieutenant, I really, really wouldn't take that risk,'_ said a voice in his head.

He struck his temple hard with the heel of his hand, partly trying to knock some sort of order into it and partly in the hope that the blow would transmit to the bastard who apparently had free access to it.

But though the impact did indeed go some way towards clearing his mind, he realised with a sinking heart that he really didn't dare take the risk. He had no certainty that this was an illusion too. And if it wasn't–.

He stood up straighter, steadying himself against the wall, and began taking stock of their surroundings.

As he'd already surmised, they were in a cell, perhaps five metres square. Floor, ceiling and the walls on three sides were of pale grey stone. The only things in it apart from themselves were a heap of filthy-looking rags that was presumably a bed of sorts, and a covered pail in one corner.

The third side was composed of metal bars with a securely locked door built in, and faced a corridor. The wall on the other side of this at first appeared to be of the same blank stone, but on closer inspection, a few paces to left and right there were what were presumably other cells. It was probable that the whole length of the ill-lit passage – it appeared to be perhaps fifty metres or so – was devoted to alternating cells.

The slit window was in the wall directly opposite the corridor. Immediately he assessed it as an escape route, but had to discard it; it was hardly a quarter of a metre wide. An under nourished child might have been able to wriggle through it, but it wouldn't accommodate an adult body, even if it had been possible to reach it.

As a matter of course he examined the soundness of the locks and the bars and the places where they were bedded into the walls and floor. Unfortunately, he hadn't so much as a piece of wire with which he could have attacked the locks – which were of some kind of crude, heavy padlock type – and although the bars looked quite old they were extremely well made. There was a grille low down on one side, presumably where food was pushed through, but like the slit window this was far too narrow to admit anything wider than an arm.

Throughout his examination Hoshi had been just behind him and to his left, watching what he did but making no effort to engage him in conversation while he was concentrating – a sensible policy, which moved her up a rung in his professional estimation. He was quite aware that she was extremely frightened, and the temptation to ask questions must be extremely strong, but she was holding herself together well. Particularly considering she'd just seen her sole companion and supposedly rational senior officer talking to someone who wasn't there and then smacking himself in the head for no apparent reason, which couldn't have been all that comforting.

He himself was conscious of the rising tide of fear. Being imprisoned like this brought back far too strongly the memories of that occasion when he and Captain Archer had been suspected of being enemy spies by one of the protagonists in a planetary civil war. Rather than tell the truth, and thereby affect the aliens' cultural development (if being involved in a civil war could be described thus), the captain had decided his and his tactical officer's lives were expendable. They'd spent a long afternoon and evening in just such a cell as this, waiting for the summons to the gallows.

That, however, was something he must push to the back of his mind. Right now the future, not the past, must be his concern – a future that was utterly unknown, but from which he must somehow wrest survival. If such a feat was possible.

Escape apparently being out of the question, at least for the present, it was time to find out whether Hoshi could contribute anything to the sum of his information.

Not much, as it turned out. According to her account, she'd been working on the Bridge as usual. It had been quiet; _Enterprise_ was on course towards a distant pulsar that the Science team were interested in studying, and T'Pol and Travis had been discussing the gravimetric distortions that might affect the ship when they came within the star's influence. There had been no warning at all that anything out of the ordinary was going to happen. "One minute I was listening to T'Pol telling Travis that this particular pulsar was what Earth scientists term a 'black widow' type, and the next – I woke up here in this cell, and I've no idea how I got here!

"And then I found you were lying next to me," she added on a note of relief. "I don't know how you got here, sir, but I'm glad I'm not alone."

He supposed her reaction was complimentary, but her evident faith in him as a protector was an additional burden. He must justify it somehow.

"I wonder if we're alone in here," he said, low-voiced.

"No, sir." His companion answered equally softly. "I've heard voices – and noises. I'd estimate there's at least twenty people in here."

"Any guards?"

"I haven't seen any."

They were standing beside the metal bars. He pressed his head against them, trying to see as far as he could up the corridor. Nobody was visible looking out in the same way. "Did you recognise the language?"

She hesitated. "I've heard something like it. On Risa."

" _Risa?_ "

"Risa attracts people from all over the quadrant," she said, with the hint of a smile in her voice. "That was one of its attractions, from my point of view: the different languages you could hear. I appreciate it wasn't what everyone went there for."

He coughed. "Indeed." It certainly hadn't been what he and Trip had gone there for, but then, neither had been getting so brain-fucked on MaiTais that he'd fallen for the oldest trick in the book and ended up getting robbed of everything bar his underwear and tied up in a basement with his superior officer. Presumably Hoshi had used her precious two days of shore leave to better effect.

"I don't know what planet they were from, or what they called themselves," she went on, serious now. "There were three or four of them in the same hotel I stayed at. I thought they were traders. They spent a lot of time in corners, talking.

"They probably didn't mean to be overheard, but – with my hearing, I can hear things better than most people can." She coloured slightly. "It wasn't that I deliberately eavesdropped. It was just that sometimes, when one of them spoke more loudly than usual, I heard them. Not that many sentences, not enough to understand a lot of what they were talking about – but it gave me a feel for the language."

"I wouldn't imagine for a moment that you deliberately eavesdropped, Ensign," he said levelly. "But any information you managed to acquire, even accidentally, could be extremely valuable in our present situation."

"They were using the word _azo_ _í_ , which in context I think is 'merchandise'. They seemed to be worried about a delivery that hadn't arrived. Of course, they didn't say a delivery of what exactly." She frowned, clearly trying to recall any more information that might be useful.

"On Risa, it could be pretty well anything." In search of anything at all that might give them information, he cast a close look for the first time at what both he and Hoshi were wearing: no longer their Starfleet uniforms, but long loose tunics of undyed wool, not particularly clean. Although grubby clothing was hardly their most pressing concern at that moment, he had to suppress a small fastidious shudder at the thought of what some of those stains might consist of.

It was hard to escape the conclusion that he and Hoshi were prisoners – the fact that they were guilty of no crime was presumably immaterial. Possibly if and when the guards arrived, these might be reasoned with; but it was a hope that found little anchorage in the shifting sea of cogitation. Prison guards are seldom selected for their powers of reasoning.

A movement further up the corridor caught his attention. Someone was looking out of their own cage. The angle made it hard to see detail; what he had glimpsed had been the hem of a tunic like theirs, whose owner was presumably close enough to the bars for part of their clothing to protrude through it. "There's someone there," he said quickly, pointing. "Call them – see if you can establish communication."

Her wide-eyed look told him the magnitude of what he was asking, and he felt absurdly guilty; what did he think she was, some kind of miracle-worker? "Just try, Ensign," he added more gently. "Anything at all you can learn may be of value. Obviously if it doesn't work, that's nobody's fault."

He was aware that making noise was risky. It could attract extremely hostile attention to them. But they had to do _something._

She pressed against the bars and called out quietly. There was no response, and she called a little more loudly, while he waited behind her, tensed for trouble.

There were a few responses, most of which were unmistakably curses. But after these had mostly muttered back into silence, one voice replied.

He thought from the timbre of it that it belonged to a woman, but it was so low and hoarse that it was difficult to be sure. The speaker seemed to have difficulty in drawing breath.

It was hardly surprising that it took a while for Hoshi to establish some kind of understanding. Unobtrusively he watched her face, trying to glean some idea of what she was saying and hearing. It was natural that she should wear a frown of intense concentration, but foreboding congealed in his stomach as he saw her slowly going pale.

He wanted to put a steadying hand on her shoulder and reassure her that this was all a stupid trick that was being played on them, and of course nothing was going to happen. But that wasn't a promise he could make without knowing he could deliver. And touching was a definite no-no.

Besides, she didn't need that kind of support. She was a strong young Starfleet officer who'd made huge strides in character since coming aboard _Enterprise_ , and what she needed was for him to set her an example. So he braced himself. Whatever she was hearing, it was his job to rationalise the situation and make whatever decisions he deemed appropriate.

The other speaker ended on a short, harsh burst of words and what was presumably a long, hacking cough.

It was plain that the communication was over.


	4. Chapter 4: Reed

"Report, Ensign!"

It wasn't particularly kind, but it worked. He saw Hoshi swallow, and straighten her shoulders. "Sir, it's ... it's not good."

"That was to be expected, but it may not be as bad as it appears. Explain."

"We're all prisoners. Condemned prisoners. We've all been brought here to be ... entertainment."

Malcolm was no longer surprised she was pale. He suspected he was pretty pale himself.

"That person, they were captured with their parent. That's apparently half the fun – prisoners in pairs. They didn't say why."

"'Person'?" he queried. "It sounded to me like a woman."

"I'm not sure they identify as a gender, sir." Her attempt to keep up her courage was heartbreakingly obvious as she added, "I – I think your _friend_ has a strange sense of humour."

"That makes two of us, Ensign. –Who think so," he added quickly, just in case she thought he was claiming to have a warped sense of humour too. "Did you manage to find out anything else?"

"Sorry, sir. They didn't say so, but I think they're injured. Badly injured."

"But they didn't say so."

"No, sir. It was just the way they were speaking. Their breathing's difficult, like they're in pain."

"There could be other reasons for that," he reminded her. "They may have different breathing requirements. Just because this atmosphere evidently suits lungs like ours, it may not be suitable for other sentient creatures who may have evolved elsewhere."

It was uncertain whether she bought his explanation, but she nodded.

"Try not to think the worst until you have to." This from the ship's resident pessimist; his smile felt as forced as hers had looked. Not for by any means the first time, he wished heartily that he had more natural _joie de vivre_. It was a working certainty that she'd rather have found herself in a pickle with Trip, or Travis, or definitely with the captain... hell, at a guess even T'Pol would have been an improvement.

"I'll try to remember that, sir."

"And I think we might dispense with the 'sirs' for the present," he added. "Shall we say, till we're back on the ship?"

"Yes, s–." Unconvincingly, she turned it into a cough. But his last words had caught her attention. "The ship – they'll be looking for us, won't they?"

"Of course they will." That, at least, could be said with glad certainty. What their chances of success might be were considerably more problematic of course, but that could remain unspoken. "But in the meantime, we should carry out a systematic search to see if there's any way we can escape."

The shortest glance around was enough to convince him that there was none, but it was important to give her some sense of purpose. He stared once again at the narrow window, from which the direct sunlight had now vanished, but it was hardly more than a slit in the stonework. As slender as Hoshi was, even if they could have contrived to get her up to it she couldn't have wriggled out; his first assessment that only a severely malnourished small child would have stood a chance of getting through it had been correct.

Still, it was their duty to search, and so they searched, starting in opposing corners. She ran her fingers across each of the joints in the metal grille, while he carried out an examination of the joints in the stonework. When they'd done with the walls, they turned their attention to the floor, grimly sweeping aside the straw and the rags to check every centimetre.

Carried out in the most exacting fashion, the search turned up exactly what he had expected it to – nothing.

"So what now?" At least she didn't call him 'sir' this time, though there was a sort of hesitation as though she was thinking about it.

"'Now', we do the only other thing we can do – rest, and wait for developments."

Both of their gazes went to the heap of rags with equal reluctance. Its sole selling point was that it was softer than the floor, but on the other hand it was dirty, smelly and probably verminous. And spread out to accommodate both of them at a proper distance, there wouldn't be much of it.

He'd already established that he was wearing nothing under the tunic. Modesty therefore precluded his offering the only garment he had for his junior officer to lie on, though if it had been necessary to protect her from cold he would have done so and damn the embarrassment either of them felt. As it was, she'd just have to brave the heap of rags, probably getting bitten to death by the inhabitants of whatever ecosystem lived in there.

It was unlikely that either of them would sleep, but he made her lie against the wall so that he would be between her and any threat.

Meanwhile, he had to find some portion of the floor for himself in front of the rags that looked even marginally less dirty than the rest of it. It was really not proper for a senior officer on duty to share the sleeping space of one of his juniors, and he silently hoped she didn't think he was expecting to, or hoping to, or ... well, that he had any _other motive._

Though the words _She'd have to take her chance with me biting her instead then_ ran serpentine through his mind, and were sternly suppressed.

He didn't need to use the pail, at least not yet. No doubt that indignity would come sooner or later for both of them.

There didn't seem to be anywhere that looked cleaner than anywhere else, so with an inward sigh he simply steeled himself and lay down along the edge of the bed, his back to its occupant so that he faced the door. Hopefully, Hoshi would feel his proximity as protective rather than intrusive. "Try to get some rest," he advised, and she murmured assent.

It wasn't particularly warm in the cell, however. After a few minutes she admitted she was a little cold, and asked hesitantly if it might be a good idea if they got a bit closer to share body heat.

If Malcolm's eyes hadn't been already shut, he would definitely have closed them at this suggestion. Nevertheless, he congratulated himself that his 'Whatever you need. I'll come back a bit, and then you can move as close to me as you like' was delivered in a perfectly neutral tone, devoid of any inappropriate undertones whatsoever.

This was comforting, until he remembered that he was talking to the best comms officer in Starfleet.

It was the work of moments for him to slither himself awkwardly onto the rags and lie still. The suggestion that she should do the moving ensured that she would be the one to set their proximity at one that she was comfortable with. Even so, the specific areas of pressure the top half of his back presently registered required him to remind himself urgently and repeatedly of the codes of _conduct becoming an officer_ , and her upper arm shyly coming to rest around his ribs didn't help one little bit.

They had shelter (however basic), warmth (some), air (however malodorous) and sanitation (of a sort). Survival training dictated that their other most important requirements were water, food and rest. Since there was no water or food, they should rest, conserving their strength.

This was the idea. Normally Malcolm was able to force himself into some kind of a doze even in fairly comfortless conditions, a carry-over from his years in the Section where you sometimes took rest when and as you could snatch it. He could sleep so lightly that the first step outside the room would have woken him. Now, however, he was too aware that Hoshi was not asleep, but listening intently, and there was no doubt that she could hear far more than he could.

Talking would merely keep both of them awake. He pillowed his head on his arm and tried to relax.

With neither of them wearing chronometers, it was difficult to judge the passage of time. However, he suspected that little more than half an hour had passed before she suddenly raised her head. The sudden movement brought him instantly tense, wide awake and ready for action.

"There's noise. A lot of noise."

He listened intently. When both of them were absolutely still, he could hear what she had done – the background buzz of many distant voices.

"Has that just started?" he whispered.

"No. But it's been getting louder. And there are people shouting now."

His brain filled in the image of a gathering theatre crowd. The cold sense of threat breathed down his neck, making him shudder. _Entertainment._

The atmosphere in the prison had changed. Presumably others had heard the growing noise too, and understood its significance. As he got to his feet and moved towards the barred wall he could hear the other prisoners, and their reaction confirmed his worst suspicions. For all that he didn't speak the language, the invective of fear is easy enough to recognise.

Hoshi had stood up too, and followed him. "Malcolm, your– the person who put us here–"

"I don't know, Hoshi." He swallowed the nausea of absolute helplessness. "I don't think he'll let you get hurt, but I just don't know."

"Why did he _do_ this to us?" she demanded in a sudden rage. "This 'experiment', why choose _us_?"

 _For 'entertainment'._ _Because he was a fucking arsehole. Because he **could**. _ But he couldn't say any of those things, couldn't give her information that would make things even worse for her. Above all he couldn't say that she was the hapless victim of a cruel joke played chiefly on him by a seemingly bored entity with seemingly unlimited powers, who'd made her the Beauty to her superior officer's Beast; for if he failed to protect her and this damned 'Q' chose not to intervene, there was every possibility she could die because of his own failure to control himself as befitted an officer.

Guilt momentarily blocked his throat. If he'd only he'd fought harder, if only he'd managed to resist the fascination she exercised over him. This danger she was in now was solely his fault.

He despised himself. Weak, just as his father had thought him.

"The reasons are hardly important," he made himself say, his voice properly cool and impersonal, and sounding pompous even to his own ears; hopefully she'd be too annoyed by his condescension to notice he'd avoided answering. "What matters is that we conduct ourselves as Starfleet officers. We must hope for an opportunity to put our case to some person in authority."

There was no mistaking the glance she shot at him. She must think him about as sensate as a sodding block of wood.

"And failing that," he went on in a somewhat grimmer voice, "we deal with whatever they throw at us."


	5. Chapter 5: Sato

There were certain things she just hadn't anticipated when she signed up for Starfleet.

Okay, so the cabin with the stars 'going the wrong way' had maybe been a bit of a girly thing, but heck, she'd never even considered signing up for deep space exploration when she enrolled in the Academy. There were plenty of opportunities for a comm. officer nearer to home, and – especially in the first few months – there had been times when she'd inwardly cursed herself for allowing Jonathan Archer to talk her into signing on aboard _Enterprise_.

Trouble was, he'd always had a persuasive tongue. In more than one way. Their brief liaison had been a passionate one, but it had been brought to an end by the conflicting pressures of their careers; Jon had always been a flyboy, his gaze set on the stars and on the fulfilment of his father's dream, while she saw herself one day occupying a post as Professor of Xenolinguistics at the Academy. That there was to date no such post troubled her not at all. The expansion into the galaxy virtually guaranteed the proliferation of alien languages that would have to be mastered and taught, and her unique skill-set placed her in prime position as a candidate when the Starfleet Brass decided that such a professorship was required. Jon, of course, was well aware of that ambition. How cunningly and ruthlessly he'd deployed the lure of being the first human to speak Klingon, an upward step in that career path she'd mapped out for herself!

And this was where she'd ended up: in a prison cell with the walking rule book that was Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, waiting to provide 'entertainment' for the baying crowd she could now hear quite clearly beyond the thick stone walls.

She wouldn't have described herself as being overly imaginative, but it was far too easy to conjure up a fair number of unpleasant alternatives that providing 'entertainment' might involve. She was conscious that her mouth was completely dry and her stomach felt hollow.

Jon would be doing everything possible to find them. Flyboy and dreamer as he had been and to some extent still was, his loyalty to his crew was unquestionable.

But would he – _could_ he – find them in time now?

As the first scrape of metal in a distant lock heralded the arrival of the guards, Hoshi swallowed convulsively. She had an overwhelming urge to grab for her companion's hand for comfort, but clenched her hands into fists instead; he probably thought she was feeble as it was, after that time when she'd been unable to stop herself from screeching at the sight of alien corpses hung up like slaughtered pigs in their own vessel.

She had conflicting feelings regarding Malcolm Reed. Sometimes it seemed as though almost against his will, a glimpse of a surprisingly attractive personality peeped from behind that anally-retentive Starfleet security officer. If only he'd had the capacity to relax, to appear human, she'd occasionally felt as though she might even have been able to like him. As it was, however, how could you possibly like anyone so awkward and unbending?

Didn't the man feel _any_ fear? He was standing completely still, seeming almost relaxed, but for the tilt of his head that told her he was listening intently.

Jon would have known instinctively what to say. Something – anything – that would have been better than this mute, tense silence while heavy booted feet advanced up the corridor.

The boot-falls stopped just short of their cell. There was the grinding squeal of a padlock disengaging, and shouting. The sounds of a struggle. One person – she thought there must be only one, for a voice began to bellow imprecations from the cell as the padlock ground shut again – was dragged away by two of the boot-wearers.

 _Prisoners in pairs._ One pair was being split up. There had to be a reason for that, and it probably wasn't good.

Reed, it seemed, had followed her train of thought. Silently he took hold of her arm and pulled her behind him, backing into the nearest corner.

In another life she'd have resented him for it.

The rest of the boots had resumed their march up the corridor. Another cell door opened. The voice this time was familiar. _Aioxiya_ , they'd said their name was.

Presumably 'the other' was dragged out. Aioxiya's voice rose, guttural with fear and rage, till they started to choke and wheeze. The cell door closed again. Another prisoner was taken outside...

...To what fate?

There was a little silence. Silence, that is, except for the cries of the separated prisoners left alone in the cells, so broken and desperate she could hardly make out one word in fifty.

Then the silence was broken. Boots were advancing.

 _They're_ _coming_. She knew it. Completely without her will, a small sound broke from her lips: an animal whimper, as she shrank back fruitlessly against the cold stone.

A hand shot back and closed on her wrist. It was steady and warm.

"Chin up, Hoshi." It was the most human thing she'd ever heard him say.

Then they were there. Seven armored, gray, hulking things, humanoid but with helmets that had black glazed panels where their eyes should be.

The panels turned to the inside of the cell. An armored fist thrust a key into the padlock.

The door opened with a shriek like a curse. Then Malcolm stepped forward, his hands raised to show he intended no resistance. "Please. We are Starfleet–"

Light flashed from a hand-held weapon. His body was flung backwards and a little to one side, crashed into the wall and fell motionless at its foot.

She should go to him, but her brain wouldn't make her do it. Thought was subsumed into blind instinct, and instinct had her tearing at the wall till her nails broke, trying to dig her way through it.

Only when they finally had a secure hold of her did thought and training return. She craned her head to see him, to make sure he was still alive; she screamed his name, and he didn't move.

He was dead, and she was going to be 'entertainment'.

She struggled like a wildcat, though their grip on her wrists and ankles was so hard it was painful. She howled abuse at them in everything from Klingon to Catalan as they carried her up the corridor.

Low, acid lemon sunlight bit briefly at her eyes, then disappeared again as she was carried into another building. Another cell. A bare rough table, on to which she was flung. She got one leg free and kicked out with it, landing blows that did nothing much except jar her joints savagely as her heel landed on rough gray armor.

It couldn't last. They captured her ankle again and wrenched her leg down. She gritted her teeth, waiting for torture, for rape….

Thick sticky liquid was slapped from a pail on to her belly, spread roughly up and down her torso. Then she was lifted up and deposited carelessly to one side, where another prisoner was sprawled, their woolen tunic rank with blood just as hers now was, their thin, bony face pallid with fear.

She'd been the third. There was no sign of the other.

"Aioxiya," she said, as her captors marched out of the cell without a backward glance. A guess. The other prisoner's amber eyes widened, and a soft wailing noise came from the small mouth.

Time passed, perhaps an hour. She tried a few times to communicate, but the alien made no response, and her attempts seemed merely to make it even more wretched. She searched the cell for food or water, for by now she was very thirsty, but there was nothing. The heat was lessening, but it was still humid. The wool was scratchy against her skin.

Malcolm was dead.

There were thin high slit-windows here too. On one side they allowed the glimpse of a darkening sky, but the other was black with the shadow of a wall like the end of existence. The wall beyond which the voices were, and she could hear them now, an entity in their own right.

There was a voice, blaring through some kind of loudspeaker system. The echoes and the poor quality of the amplification distorted the sound so much she could hardly distinguish one word from another, but there was no mistaking the intent: whipping up excitement into frenzy, ready for the 'entertainment'.

She was a Starfleet officer. She tried to remember that, to use it to bolster her waning courage. Whatever was coming, and it wasn't going to be good, she'd face it – deal with it.

Alone.

All for the sake of a damned _experiment._

She tried to tell herself that it wouldn't be allowed to play out till its end, that surely nothing sentient could be so cruel. But surely those were 'sentient' creatures out there, laughing and shouting in anticipation of the horrors to come. 'Sentient' wasn't the same as 'civilized' – even back on _Enterprise_ she'd seen proof of that, when the true nature of some of the beings they'd come out to meet and supposedly befriend was revealed in all its ugliness.

 _Enterprise_ would come. Jon would rescue her. She believed that, because not believing it left her in a world she couldn't bear to contemplate.

She went on telling herself that while the voices from beyond the wall rose in a crescendo of excitement and at a guess, someone or something died.

She didn't even stop when the guards came back and Aioxiya was taken from the room and she was left alone. Once again the excitement mounted, and this time it went on a little longer, crashing against her hearing in waves of horror. But it was never going to last, and presently a drawn-out groan of satisfaction signified that once again the audience had been suitably 'entertained'.

She was too paralysed with dread to pray. She still believed, but that was because Jon's luck had never yet failed him, and because, at the core of things, she still couldn't accept that she was really going to die for the sake of an _experiment_.

When they came for her, time seemed to slow down. It took forever for the door to open, for them to come in and cross the room towards her.

She was thirsty. It was a monstrous injustice for them to let her die without even giving her a drink of water.

The rage at this injustice broke her paralysis. She hurled herself at them.

It was wasted effort, of course. She achieved nothing but bruising her fists and knees against their cold grayness, and even in that strange, slowed time consciousness it was hardly any time at all before she was a pinioned prisoner.

He was dead, but she still gasped his name as she was dragged from the room. Jon had hired him, Jon had trusted him to keep them all safe! The door of the cell block was opposite, across a narrow, dirty passageway. It was shut. She gave up on the dignity of a Starfleet officer and screamed " _Malcolm! Help me!_ " but he was dead, and there was only the startled chatter of a couple of small, mottled brown birds that had been pecking at something on the floor a couple of meters away but took flight at the sudden noise.

The guards dragged her through a gate in the wall. It opened on near-blackness and a stench of feces and fear, but they seemed able to see perfectly well, and hauled her along a bewildering series of dark corridors.

Finally, double doors were thrust open and bright light broke over them all. With it came the sound, a wall of it that smote her sensitive hearing as though the sky had fallen in. Heat, too: a dry, desert heat radiated by the sand underfoot, baked beneath the glaring sun all day and now beating it out into the cooling evening air.

Struggle as she might and did, they carried her to a post at one side of the arena and tied her there with ropes. Their movements were those of men who have carried out the duty so often they hardly perceive the prisoner as any more meaningful than the block to which he or she or they are tied.

Having secured her, they walked away. Above the wall that now reared some six meters or so above her head, rank on rank of stone tiers were filled with spectators, and she felt the unbearable weight of their greedy, speculative gaze. The air was heavy with the smell of the cooked food being handed out so that customers wouldn't need to leave their seats and miss any of the fun below.

"Jon," she panted, gazing up into the cloudless sky. He was out there somewhere, searching for her. He'd find her. He _had_ to find her in time!

But instead, the door opposite her opened.


	6. Chapter 6: Reed

The jolt woke him: unbearable pain lancing up his calf into his thigh and searing through dark dreams.

He was scrambling blindly away to escape from it even before his eyes opened, but he came up short against the hard wall of the cell's far corner.

A desperate glance around showed him that he and his now four armoured captors were alone in the foul little room. Hoshi. What the fuck had the other three done with Hoshi?

The pain was from an iron device fastened around his left ankle. Its outer surface seemed to be completely smooth, but the inside was clearly capable of inflicting awful pain somehow. He wouldn't have been surprised to see blood leaking from beneath it, but there was nothing – presumably the device connected somehow with his nervous system, though the sensation had been more like having a thousand red-hot knives thrust into his leg.

His next discovery was that he had a collar around his neck. It felt like leather, and was attached to the thin metal chain whose other end one of the guards was holding. It had been left loose enough to allow him to run himself into the wall in the agony of his awakening (presumably this was felt to be amusing), but as soon as his swimming head cleared, the leash began to be hauled in. He set his hand to the chain and dug his feet into the straw in the effort to resist, but the reward for that was predictable: another blast of pain up his leg, this one so hard that he had to grit his teeth together to stop himself from crying out.

The drag on the chain didn't let up. Nor did it seem likely he'd have been able to resist it effectively even if he hadn't felt as though his whole left leg was being incinerated; the guards must be immensely strong, for the one who was dragging him hardly seemed to be exerting any effort. He was hauled across the cell, too mad with pain to be able to stand up and go obediently where he was wanted.

When they got him into the corridor the pain subsided; the control (wherever it was, for he could see nothing that corresponded to a hand-held device) had presumably been switched off again. The collar and leash hauled him unceremoniously to his feet, where he found that the four guards who now surrounded him were at least half a metre taller than he and intimidating in the extreme, even if he hadn't been now obliged to rest half of his weight on a leg that was trembling and tingling with shock.

He'd been hoping against hope that whoever came for him and Hoshi would be people to whose reason he could appeal, but as soon as he'd seen them he'd known that hope was almost certainly in vain. Two other prisoners had been dragged away to a fate unknown, and now they were coming for a third; his duty had been clear. If they wouldn't listen to him, he had to try to create a chance for Hoshi to escape.

Well. That had been the idea. In the event, he hadn't even got to the end of his request to be allowed to explain who he and Hoshi were. He could remember some violent sensation of shock – presumably he'd been hit with some kind of a stun weapon, for he remembered nothing afterwards. At a guess, they could have used it on Hoshi too.

"We are innocent," he said now as steadily as he could, controlling his dread that they might have no translation device; perhaps now they had him secured they might be willing to listen to him. "We are officers from the Starfleet ship _Enterprise_. We have not committed a crime. Please let me speak to someone in authority."

They might have understood him, or they might not have; the results were the same. There was certainly no indication that if they did understand him, they gave a damn. A hard jerk on the chain propelled him along the corridor, glimpsing from the corner of his vision the other cells they passed, most of which were occupied by beings of assorted shapes and sizes – all, apparently, in pairs.

 _Pairs..._ there had to be some significance in that, and it was unlikely to be a good one. Half of his pair was missing, and he could only hope desperately that she might somehow have been able to escape. Logic as well as selflessness insisted that her escape was the best option for both of them. If she'd managed to get free, she might be able to hide herself until she could find some way to contact _Enterprise_. She was the best comm. officer in the Fleet; she was resourceful, she was smart, and if anyone could do it, she could. Maybe he was out of options, but it would be so much easier to endure whatever was to come stoically if only he could be sure she was safe and free, and maybe – just maybe – she might be able to summon help that might come for him in time.

The outside world impinged briefly on his consciousness before another door swallowed him and a seemingly endless series of noisome dark corridors bewildered him. He tried to keep count of the turns, but his head was aching from where it had struck the wall of the cell, his mouth was parched with thirst and he felt more than a little sick. Every now and then the fluttering smoky flames of a torch driven into a bracket on the wall lent some illumination to the world, but either his guards had artificial vision aids of some kind in their helmets or they had night vision that was many times more efficient than that of a human.

Suddenly the background smell intensified, and sounds from the doors on either side suggested that these were animal pens. Below one torch a large pail sat, and the sullen flicker from above gleamed on the liquid surface within.

 _Water!_

It might not be water at all, of course, and even if it was it might be contaminated with all sorts of anything. It could even be a piss-bucket. But right now he couldn't afford to be choosy about his chances.

He'd been stumbling along with his head bowed, trying to give the best impression he could of being thoroughly cowed and hopeless. But as he drew level with the pail, he suddenly lunged sideways towards it.

The four guards were far too bulky for him to actually knock any of them aside, but he managed to create enough of a space to allow him to slip through. He had his neck braced to absorb the jerk of the collar, and it was probably surprise that dragged some of the chain loose – enough, at least, to let him reach the pail. And thanks be to whichever saint was the patron of beleaguered armoury officers, the smell told him it was water. Stale and warm as it might be, it was water.

It was utterly inevitable that the punishment came even as he plunged his face into it. He knew he'd have a couple of seconds at best, he had no time to taste it first; he just gulped it down, so thirsty that it tasted like nectar. Then, even as the fire roared up his leg, he dropped his weight deliberately on the rim of the wood so that it tipped over, sending the liquid flooding across the flagstones. He got drenched himself of course, but at least there would be no opportunity now of anyone getting the bright idea of trying to drown him in the pail by way of a reward for his illicit drink.

It seemed that the guards were displeased – either by his initiative, or by getting their feet wet, or possibly both or neither. The pain intensity this time was worse than either of the previous times, and he flailed like a landed salmon, unable to bite back the sounds that issued between his gritted teeth. His instinct was to grab at his tormented leg, trying to somehow push or tear the device off it, but if he did the sensations transferred themselves through his hands into his arms, so he very quickly learned not to try.

He did not know how long the punishment lasted. It felt like a very long time indeed, but at last the red hot knives were withdrawn, and the collar and leash hauled him choking back to his feet.

This time he didn't have to feign difficulty walking. He had a knee that felt as if the inside of it had melted and muscles that felt like cooked spaghetti. A couple of times during the first few paces the knee gave way altogether, and he would have pitched forward but for the jerk of the collar. It seemed that the bastard holding the end of the chain was well aware how bad the effects of the punishment would be, for now he held it aloft, providing a support of sorts so that the prisoner could clutch the chain with both hands and steady his leg under him somehow, stopping himself from falling headlong. Whether this was because they didn't want him to injure himself any further for some reason, or because they didn't want to waste time dragging him up off the floor again, was debatable.

Fortunately the sensations once again wore off relatively quickly. By the time they stopped in front of a large wooden door, he could once again fix all his concentration of the muffled wall of noise behind it – a sound that made his stomach contract with dread.

Shards of light coming through cracks in the wood illuminated his surroundings well enough to let him see that there were racks on the wall on either side where what looked like javelins leaned. They were old and pitted with use, and not one of them was straight enough to be any use whatsoever as a missile. Even the points were effectively blunt – if he could have shot one out of the ship's forward torpedo tube at an extremely large marshmallow at virtually point-blank range it might have achieved something, but as hand-held weapons they were a joke. From a distance they might look good, but the truth was, they were about as much use as a box of bloody toothpicks.

A voice was bellowing outside. He understood none of the words, but he knew well enough the sound of a crowd being whipped up. Sweat broke on his palms.

There was no apparent communication between any of the guards; maybe they'd done this so often it was just a well rehearsed routine, or maybe they had some internal means of talking to one another. Two of them stepped forward, lifted the heavy bar that held the door closed, and thrust it open, letting in a wash of dazzling light that fairly blinded him. In the same moment, the third selected a javelin – presumably the nearest to hand – and cast it out into the glare. The fourth, now behind him, deftly clicked off the fastening that anchored the chain to his collar and gave him a shove between the shoulder-blades even as the ones who'd opened the door grabbed his arms and fairly propelled him out through the doorway, so hard it was all he could do not to fall flat on his face.

Even as he scrambled desperately not to pitch headlong on the soft sand, the roar from above and all around him rose like the baying of wild animals. Squinting, he saw the javelin skittering to a halt a couple of metres away from him, and he lunged for it, snatching it up even as he straightened and turned, forcing his eyes to open and function even as he blinked away tears caused by the terrible brightness of his surroundings.

The stone walls were almost white in colour, like the sand underfoot, throwing back the lights that were ranged behind the seating and focussed onto the arena below. _Artificial_ lights – this was no pre-industrial civilisation, however they aped the brutality of the ancient world for their amusement. The device on his leg had already told him so, but now it was amply confirmed.

The arena was perhaps fifty metres across, and open to the sky, which was cloudless and fading towards dusk. The space was roughly circular, but at intervals buttresses stood forward, presumably to add a little extra feature to the stage on which life and death struggles were acted out for the amusement of the mob. For that was what he already knew this was: the survival of the fittest in its cruellest form.

For a couple of seconds, as his sight adjusted, he dared to hope that he was alone in it. But as his vision cleared, he saw her, and his heart turned over and went into freefall.

Using the base of the javelin for support for the first few paces, though feeling and use were well on the way to returning, he stumbled over to her. "Hoshi!" No time for the absurdities of 'Ensign' now, not with the front of her body an obscenity of drying blood that was stark against the whiteness of the wall. "What have they done to you?"

"Malcolm!" He couldn't blame her for the piteous little gasp of fear and relief as he reached her and propped the javelin against the wall while he began trying to tear at the masses of knots that held her to the post there. "I thought you were dead!"

"Grossly exaggerated rumours," he said as he cursed inwardly; the ropes were like bloody hawsers, resisting all his efforts to pry them loose – perhaps he'd have better luck trying to pry a way through with the point of the javelin? "Have they hurt you?"

"I'm okay, but we've got to get out of here, we've– _MALCOLM!_ "

Her scream was almost drowned in the howl of glee from above.


	7. Chapter 7: Sato

He was always rather pale, as though his childhood had been spent locked away in a dark cupboard, but now his pallor was terrifying.

He was the only one who could save her, and for a moment he looked as though he was on the verge of fainting as he was thrust out of the dark doorway towards her, his eyes gray glass set in chalk.

 _Malcolm, what have they done to you?_ There was something fastened around his left leg, some alien implement, and it was that leg he was favoring.

But he pulled himself together somehow and lurched as quickly as he could across the arena to where she was tied. Even through the noise from above, so loud that the din hammered on her ears, she could hear the jerkiness of his breathing as he finally drew level with her. A bruise was already blackening on the side of his face where it had hit the wall of the cell as he was thrown into it by the pulse weapon.

But he was alive, at least he was alive after she'd been sure he was dead, and despite the awful pallor of his face it could still summon up a tight smile that bolstered her flagging courage. And that English humor as he quipped something about rumors of his death having been grossly exaggerated, even as he started trying to set her free.

She should be maintaining proper Starfleet discipline, she should keep her mouth shut and let her superior officer concentrate, but communication was her very life's blood, and she had to say _something_. Even if the words that sprang off her tongue were neither very brave nor in the least helpful, but merely betrayed the depth of her terror. Because something was going to happen, something absolutely terrifying, that was what they were here for, that was why the prisoners were kept in pairs – one as the defender, the other as –

 _Bait._

 _"MALCOLM!"_

In another world, another life, she'd have been ashamed of the way she screamed his name. But in another life the third entrance to the arena wouldn't suddenly have swung open, two double doors operated by ropes and pulleys because no-one would open them by hand, not with what was waiting beyond to come through them.

The roar of the crowd was the greatest of the evening as what had been a dull gray amorphous mass in the gloom within slowly grew a neck which extended into the acid lamplight. At the end of it the elongated head had nostrils that flared wide, testing the hot air. Behind them small, deep-set eyes glittered as the jaws shifted to let a long blue tongue flutter out briefly, its damp surface absorbing the scents which the eddies of a fitful breeze brought to it.

Clearly, the creature had found what it expected to find. With hideous, slow purpose it stepped forward, bringing more of itself into the light.

Hysteria had initially suggested a dragon, and certainly its head and mobile neck somewhat resembled those of that legendary creature. But although its short, powerful body with squat legs was heavily scaled, it had no wings. What it did have – and the noise increased beyond belief as this emerged into view – was a high, arched tail with a curved sting at the end of it.

The ultra-proper Englishman beside her came out with a phrase of such dazzling obscenity in six different Earth languages that for a moment she couldn't even believe she'd heard such words on his lips.

But there was clearly no time now to pry her loose. She jerked with utter desperation at the ropes binding her as he picked up the javelin again and stepped away from her, his face settling into hard lines of desperation and resolve. He made a small, odd gesture, almost of accepting something, and that in itself set off a detonation of panic in her mind; what was he thinking? If only she could get free, if only she could help him; but it was impossible. The cords were as tight as ever. No way in hell was she going to be able to pull them loose.

She stared up at the faces above her – some of them leaning over the edge, howling encouragement, all lit with excitement. There was not one with a single shred of pity. They had come to watch criminals pay for their crimes, and the bloody fate to come was a fitting punishment.

"We're innocent – we're _innocent!_ " she shouted, in the language she'd overheard the merchants using on Risa. If she could only reach one person, make them listen to her – just one –!

Nobody was listening. Somewhere in the crowd someone started a chant, and within seconds it was being bellowed from end to end of the benches, while the singers swayed in ecstatic unison. _'Ko-kotiv! Ko-kotiv! Ko-kotiv!' 'The Avenger! The Avenger! The Avenger!'_

But somebody _was_ listening. Just one person, up there in that blood-maddened bedlam, was sitting still. He was seated in the front row, but rather than leaning forward he seemed completely relaxed. His eyes were fixed on her, and the expression on his rather aristocratic face was one of almost amused interest. Not so much as a glimmer of compassion.

'For pity's sake–!' She spared a frantic glance for where Malcolm was starting to circle the oncoming behemoth. He looked ridiculously small, pathetically vulnerable. The javelin looked like a cocktail stick in his hands against the beast in front of him, and she'd already seen that the point wasn't even sharp. He might jab with it, but he certainly couldn't do any significant damage.

"We're innocent – we're _innocent!_ " she sobbed, staring up at the watching man above her. "He's a good man, don't let him die! Stop this, please stop it!"

He took a leisurely sip of the drink he was holding, smiled, and then transferred his gaze to the center of the arena. If he'd understood, or even heard, he clearly didn't give a damn.

It was now apparent that the dragon-creature shared the ability of Earth chameleons to operate its eyes in two independent directions. One was fixed beadily on her, and the other was watching Malcolm, who was slowly edging closer. She could only hope that for all that his attention seemed to be centered on the jaws, he hadn't forgotten the hovering tail.

She wanted to call out to him to be careful, but even if he could have heard her, it would only have been a distraction. And by some mysterious alchemy, he no longer looked vulnerable. He looked … calculating. Strangely … _dangerous._ No longer quite the same person who'd smiled shy gratitude at her when he discovered it was she who had uncovered his secret food favorite in time for him to have a pineapple-flavored cake for his birthday.

He was the ship's Head of Security, and during the course of the voyage so far they'd all seen that he was skilled at self-defense, patiently coaching his juniors to improve. His expertise with weapons was undoubted, was the reason why he'd been appointed by the captain to safeguard the ship against armed attack. But this – this was something different, a side she'd never seen, and wasn't sure she would have liked in any other circumstance but this one.

He didn't even seem to be favoring his leg any more, though the thick silver shackle was still locked around it. He moved with a slow, deliberate lightness, placing each step with care; like a – yes, like a wolf, creeping up towards a potentially deadly enemy and looking for the weakness.

Suddenly, he pitched forward. The crowd roared and Hoshi gasped, thinking he'd tripped, but even as he hit the ground he rolled, so that the sting that immediately darted down at him struck just to the right of his twisting body. In the second that it was buried in the ground he brought the javelin around and thrust it at the thick flesh just behind the bony sting, withdrawing it immediately so it wasn't dragged from his grasp as the tail was wrenched back.

The weapon's point was indeed relatively blunt, but thrust with all the strength of his arm it was still evidently capable of inflicting some kind of damage. Possibly the skin in that area was softer than the rest, or he'd noticed some weak point there – a recent injury, maybe.

Ko-kotiv was clearly not used to being the one being stung. A high, angry shriek issued from the fanged mouth as the sting lifted high, shaking drops of blood from the wound below it. A flurry of strikes followed, but Malcolm kept moving, with his free hand throwing up handfuls of sand to confuse his outline, and at each strike the tail took another painful jab.

But his wriggles had brought him closer to the head, and as the creature suddenly realized he was within striking distance it let out a screech of triumph and plunged its open jaws straight down onto him.

He couldn't escape; he was too close, and the beast was too quick. But the next screech that rent the air was on a very different note – basically because the bloody point of the javelin was protruding from the back of the scaly neck. Even as his attacker lunged, Malcolm had twisted over to plant the haft of the metal in the ground beside him, so that the whole strength of the creature's attack, with all that weight behind it, drove the open mouth down onto the upright spike of the weapon.

Blunt the point might be. Nevertheless, all that power concentrated on the end of it was more than enough to make it deadly.

Ko-kotiv reared back, clawing at the javelin now protruding obscenely from between its jaws. The tail lashed mindlessly, throwing up huge fans of sand, and the noise of the crowd was a wall of sound from which no single emotion could possibly have been distinguished.

The lieutenant hadn't escaped unscathed. The teeth had all but closed on him before the shock of the wound sank in to the relatively small brain in that bony head, and as it tore itself free of him they ripped his upper arm, thigh and hip; blood sprang there, staining the torn fabric as he scrambled clear.

He was now unarmed – a state of things that he would hate. But Ko-kotiv was no longer interested in food. It was preoccupied with the javelin, which it could neither break nor dislodge, and which was preventing its jaws from closing. Moreover, each swat with the powerful claws at the projecting haft was worsening the damage inside, worsening the pain and reducing its ability to think. And the worse the damage became, the faster the blood ran from it.

Hoshi was no longer an object of interest. Ko-kotiv was now clearly hell-bent on destroying the miserable little creature who was responsible for this awful, unbelievable pain. But the cuts around the sting had made the blows with it too painful to be delivered with full force, and the javelin was immobilizing its mouth. Swipes with the big armored forefeet could have hurled the wretch against the walls hard enough to have broken every bone in his body, but somehow each one just missed; the prey was as elusive as a gadfly, and every so often as Ko-kotiv lunged in pursuit the haft of the javelin would embed itself in the sand, forcing even more of it through the wound and tearing it wider. Blood was now coursing freely down the back and neck and dripping from the jaws, and noises of pain and fury broke from the huge creature as it lumbered around the arena – Malcolm leading it carefully away from his imprisoned fellow officer if it ever showed signs of heading in her direction, sometimes taking dangerous risks to do so.

But the sounds were diminishing in volume, and the lunges were growing weaker and less accurate. The tail flailed as though lifting it was an effort its owner was finding it more and more difficult to sustain, and presently it did not lift at all, but dragged limply in the sand. A pause for breath and strength-gathering turned into more and longer pauses, while Malcolm simply waited, poised lightly on the balls of his feet and with a feral little smile on his lips, as though he knew it was simply a matter of time.

As indeed it _was_ simply a matter of time now, and for all that the cries from above urged the dying creature to make one last effort and catch the felon who had dealt it this mortal injury, the felon was in no mood to be caught. He evaded the increasingly desperate and inaccurate lunges with an ease that soon became positively insulting, until at last, in a gesture that was utterly out of keeping with the reserved Malcolm Reed that Hoshi had known until now, he tore off his tunic and began mockingly using it like a matador's cape every time the head wavered in his direction. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he wasn't wearing a stitch underneath it, and once she'd gotten over the first shock of delighted horror, she couldn't help but laugh at his impudence.

It couldn't last. Ko-kotiv expanded the last of its waning strength in a final burst of lunges and then finally crashed its muzzle into the sand and collapsed against the wall. Even as it did so, Malcolm jumped up on to its head, ran up to its shoulders, leaped, made a grab and hauled himself up. The crowd at the wall shrieked and fell back, but rather than attack the nearest, he sprang at a particularly well-dressed, middle-aged lady and grabbed her. He only held her for a second, but when he jumped back down again there was a distinct bloody handprint on her right breast and she was gasping for breath as though her mouth had been momentarily blocked by an invading tongue.

The action turned the crowd's mood the way a gust from an easterly wind will turn a weathervane. There was an explosion of delighted laughter and applause as the villain slid down the slippery neck of Ko-kotiv's corpse, retrieved his discarded tunic and put it back on with a swagger before turning with raised arms to accept the rapturous reception.

He strolled over to Hoshi. "I believe we can take our time with this now," he said, starting to pull at the ropes. She could hardly recognize his expression: he looked so young and mischievous, his eyes sparkling with triumph. And the memory of him prancing around in the buff in front of an audience of thousands was not one she'd forget in a hurry, for more than one reason.

"Malcolm Reed, I don't think I actually know you at all," she said, shaking with nerves and laughter as the cords began to fall loose.

"I don't think you do either. But we can always work on that." His mouth was bare inches from hers. The long dark lashes lowered over a distinctly predatory look that woke several dozen butterflies in the base of her stomach. "If the idea appeals to you, of course."

"Winner gets a kiss, after all." She tried to keep her voice light, but he needed no further invitation than that.

If she'd have thought about it at all, she'd have thought he'd be clumsy, but his lips although gentle were sure of themselves. His fingertips slipped up the side of her jaw and tilted her head up for his kisses, which became more and more passionate–


	8. Chapter 8: Q

"And there, I think, we may leave it."

I've always had a flair for the dramatic. I thought that was exactly the point at which the curtain should be drawn, and I pulled Reed and his _bien-aimée_ from that particular reality as neatly as Jean-Luc concluding yet another round of those tiresome diplomatic conferences of his.

He staggered slightly, blinked, and ran a hand down his Starfleet uniform to reassure himself that he was back in his own world. For sheer convenience I'd brought him back to his precious Armory, but across from us Miss Sato was still pressed against the post in the arena, her mouth tilted up to a shadowy image of himself.

Kissing. It's so unhygienic, but these Humans really do seem to place so much importance on it. I've never understood why.

"Was that – real?" he asked slowly, staring at me.

Well. As if I'm in the business of giving people _answers._ Naturally I waved the question away. "The important thing is that the young woman in question finally got to see the real you," I said testily. "As opposed to that stuffed-shirt persona you seem to feel it necessary to adopt on board ship."

"It's not my usual practice to run around naked in front of junior officers," he admitted with a smile that quite transformed his rather hard and humorless face and lent it (if such a word can really be used of his species) quite a remarkable charm.

Humans! He put on a display of astonishing bravery to save the life of the young woman he loves, and all that he can find to think of is that she had the 'privilege' of seeing his genitals on general display. It isn't as if she _minded_ , I inform him tartly. (Actually she was quite pleased, though I can't imagine why.)

"Well, did you find what you came for?" he asked.

I waved an airy hand. "You were mildly entertaining. And see how generous I am in return! When I release Miss Sato, she'll see you as her conquering hero. What young woman could resist a man who risks his life to save her?"

Rather to my surprise, he didn't answer at once. Instead, he walked over to where she was still frozen, still as a statue, and studied her kissing the image of himself. He was no longer smiling; in fact, he looked strangely sad.

After a moment, he turned back to me. "I don't want her to remember," he said steadily.

 _What?_ I'd placed the both of them in a reality that would enable him to play Saint George slaying the dragon, and he didn't want the fair maiden he'd rescued to even be grateful to him for it?

"I went to all this trouble for you, and you don't want to reap the benefit of it?" I demanded indignantly.

He crossed his arms resolutely. "No."

Humans! Rejecting the benefits I could heap upon them must be a genetic trait. First Crusher and la Forge, then Riker, and even the Klingon and the android were tainted with the selfsame folly – and now Reed!

The whole lot of them are a conundrum, if you ask me. And I was thoroughly tired of trying to work them out, and especially of trying to make their sad little lives a little happier. My selfless generosity was _never_ gratefully appreciated.

I was so exasperated I stood up and glared at him. "Would you mind telling me exactly _why?_ – For heaven's sake, you're not worried about her having seen you naked!"

He shook his head. "Not in the least. At least, not in the way you mean."

 _Ah._ I looked at him more carefully. A complex man, is Malcolm Reed, and there are more than one sorts of nakedness. Also he has a prickly pride, and a deep sense of honor, which overlays a great deal of unnecessary shame.

"You are aware that had you not done what you did, you probably wouldn't have survived it. And therefore, neither would she."

He looked at me levelly. "I'm aware of that."

"And so there could hardly be any more fortuitous opportunity to introduce her to the idea that you may have, shall we say, 'hidden talents'."

"Some more hidden than others," he quips.

Humans. They're so fixated on their genitals.

However, the gleam of humor was short-lived, and that dogged determination fell back across his face the next second. "I don't want her to remember any of this. I don't want her to be grateful to me for saving her from a cruel trick, and I don't want her to remember seeing someone who – who doesn't exist any more. Above all, I don't want her to remember being afraid."

He looked across at her then, and there was so much yearning in that look; if I were fanciful, I might almost think he was storing up the memory of how she'd kissed him.

"I take it _you_ want to remember," I said truculently.

Give him his due, he hesitated. "I don't think that would be for the best," he answered at last, low-voiced.

Humans. I'll never understand them, not if I live for another twenty aeons. He loved her. He really did.

Well, far be it from me to foist my benevolences unwanted upon ungrateful recipients. (Though for a moment I _did_ toy with the idea of making him irresistibly sexually attractive to every other living creature on board _Enterprise_. It would have been worth hanging around for a while, to see him pursued around the corridors by everyone from the captain down to the Denobulan's bat.) But with my usual exquisite sensitivity, I refrained. He'd had more than enough excitement for one day.

Next thing in their time consciousness, Hoshi Sato blinked at her communications console, thinking she'd momentarily dozed off. She thought she must have had one of those micro-second dreams they do, but shook it away. She couldn't remember it anyway.

Malcolm Reed looked up as Crewman Nwosu walked through the doorway, and nodded approval of the man's punctuality. His life was back to normal. Routine. Lonely. A block of gray granite with a core of fire that he keeps carefully shielded, fire on an altar to the goddess he worships from afar.

I'd had enough of humans for a while. A thankless lot at the best of times, and so I took my leave of that wretched little ship and left it to go on its way. After all, I have all the Universes to play in.

What? I'm not as mean as you think. I haven't taken it from him completely.

Sometimes, when he's low in spirit, he'll have a fragment of a dream: a dream in which she kisses him, her savior, her friend…

Will the dream ever come true? In the way he wants it to?

I may go back some day. Just to find out.

If I'm particularly bored.

Humans.

Such odd, vexatious little creatures.

I can only be glad I'm not one of them.

 **The End.**


End file.
